The Mathematics section is the achievement paper — it tests what your child has actually been taught at school, under about thirty seconds a question with no calculator. This guide covers every strand it draws on, gives you original sample questions with worked solutions, and shows the traps that cost marks students already had.
Free · 3 days' access · Timed, exam-style papers with worked solutions
EduTest Mathematics is a timed, multiple-choice, non-calculator section of roughly 30 minutes. It is an achievement test: it assesses curriculum mathematics your child has been taught — number and arithmetic, algebra, geometry, measurement, statistics and probability — rather than raw reasoning ability.
That distinction matters for preparation. Because it maps to what is taught, gaps are fixable: a child who cannot yet handle percentages or negative numbers can be taught them in a fortnight. The two things that separate similar students are speed of accurate mental arithmetic and knowing when to abandon a question.
There is a second maths-flavoured section on the paper — Numerical Reasoning — and families often confuse the two. Numerical Reasoning tests pattern-finding and logic with numbers; Mathematics tests taught content. See the full breakdown in our EduTest test format guide.
EduTest's five sections split into two kinds. Knowing which is which tells you where preparation time actually converts into marks.
These test taught curriculum content. A child who has not met index notation, or who has never written under a five-minute plan, is not lacking ability — they are lacking exposure.
Exposure is exactly what preparation supplies. This is the fastest-moving part of an EduTest score, and Mathematics is the clearest example of it.
These lean on reasoning that generalises — spotting a relationship, a sequence, an inference. They still improve with practice, but the improvement comes from familiarity with question shapes rather than from learning content.
Progress here is real but slower, which is why front-loading maths gaps early in a preparation cycle is usually the better return.
The practical takeaway: audit the maths content first. Sit one timed paper, sort every wrong answer into "never taught it", "taught it but forgot", "knew it but was too slow" and "careless". The first two buckets are teachable in weeks, and they are usually the largest ones in Year 5–7 candidates.
EduTest does not publish a question-by-question breakdown, so the weightings below are indicative — drawn from the shape of practice papers at each entry level, not from an official syllabus. Treat them as where to spend revision time, not as a guarantee.
Four operations, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio, negative numbers, order of operations, rounding and estimation. The largest single block at every level.
Substitution, simplifying, expanding brackets, one- and two-step equations, writing expressions from words, simple patterns and rules.
Angles on lines and in triangles, properties of 2D shapes, symmetry, transformations, coordinates, and Pythagoras at the higher entry levels.
Length, mass, capacity, time, perimeter, area, volume, and metric unit conversion. Conversion errors are one of the most common avoidable losses.
Simple probability as a fraction, likelihood language, listing outcomes, and two-step events such as two coins or two dice at the higher levels.
Mean, median, mode and range; reading column graphs, line graphs, pie charts and tables; drawing a conclusion from displayed data.
Multi-step word problems: rates, sharing in a ratio, scaling recipes, money, time intervals. Content is ordinary; the difficulty is in the translation.
Year 10 and 11 entry only: indices, surds in simple form, gradient and linear graphs, simultaneous equations, basic trigonometry ratios.
A word on the percentages: EduTest has never released a topic breakdown, and the mix varies between forms and entry levels. The figures above are our estimate from working through practice material, and we label them clearly rather than presenting them as official. What is reliable across every level is the ordering: arithmetic dominates, and measurement plus algebra together make up most of the rest.
EduTest builds a different paper for each entry level. The content ceiling rises with the year group, and each level assumes the ones below it are secure.
| Entry level | Sat in | Core content assumed | Where students most often fall short |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 7 entry | Year 5 or 6 | Four operations, fractions and decimals, simple percentages, perimeter and area, time, basic angles, mean and mode, simple probability | Percentage of a quantity; converting between fractions, decimals and percentages under time pressure |
| Year 8 entry | Year 6 or 7 | All of the above plus negative numbers, order of operations, ratio, volume of prisms, coordinates, simple algebraic substitution | Order of operations with brackets and negatives; ratio sharing problems |
| Year 9 entry | Year 7 or 8 | Adds solving linear equations, expanding brackets, area of triangles and circles, index notation, median and range, two-step probability | Two-step equations; circle area versus circumference confusion |
| Year 10 entry | Year 8 or 9 | Adds Pythagoras, gradient, linear graphs, factorising simple expressions, surface area, rates and proportion | Pythagoras applied in word problems; gradient sign errors |
| Year 11 entry | Year 9 or 10 | Adds simultaneous equations, index laws, basic trigonometric ratios, quadratic expansion, more demanding multi-step problem solving | Index laws under time pressure; setting up simultaneous equations from words |
How to use this table: find your child's entry level, then work one row up. Papers routinely include a handful of questions that stretch past the expected level, and they are worth exactly the same as every other question — which is precisely why they should be flagged and left rather than fought.
No calculator, roughly thirty seconds a question. A child who hesitates over 7 × 8 does not lose one mark — they lose seconds on every question that contains a multiplication, which is most of them.
Typical time to answer a two-step arithmetic question, by fluency level. Same knowledge, very different totals across sixty questions.
At fifteen seconds a question a student finishes with time to check. At forty, they run out with a fifth of the paper untouched — and the untouched questions are not the hard ones, they are simply the last ones.
This is why arithmetic fluency is worth more than any single topic. It is not a maths skill so much as a time-management one, and it is trainable in short daily doses rather than long sessions.
Ten minutes a day of timed tables, doubles, halves and number bonds moves an EduTest Mathematics score more reliably than an hour of new content.
The percentage shortcut worth drilling above all others: find 10%, then build. 15% of 240 becomes 24 + 12 = 36. 35% of 80 becomes 8 + 8 + 8 + 4 = 28. Almost every percentage question on an EduTest paper falls to this in under fifteen seconds, and it removes the need for long multiplication entirely.
Measurement questions are rarely conceptually hard. They are lost to unit slips — answering in centimetres when the options are in metres, or forgetting that area conversions square the factor.
| Shape or quantity | Formula | Typical slip |
|---|---|---|
| Rectangle | Area = l × w; Perimeter = 2(l + w) | Adding l + w and forgetting to double |
| Triangle | Area = ½ × base × height | Using a slanted side instead of the perpendicular height |
| Circle | Area = πr²; Circumference = 2πr | Using the diameter where the radius belongs |
| Cuboid | Volume = l × w × h | Answering with surface area instead |
| Prism | Volume = cross-sectional area × length | Picking the wrong face as the cross-section |
| Angles | Triangle = 180°; straight line = 180°; around a point = 360°; quadrilateral = 360° | Confusing 180 and 360 under time pressure |
| Pythagoras (Yr 10–11) | a² + b² = c² | Treating a shorter side as the hypotenuse |
| Speed | Speed = distance ÷ time | Mixing minutes and hours in the same calculation |
The ten-second habit that fixes most of these: circle the units in the question and the units in the options before calculating. If they differ, convert first and write the converted number down. Students who do this consistently lose almost nothing to measurement slips.
Twenty-three questions across all eight strands, in EduTest's four-option multiple-choice style. Click an option to see whether it is right and read the worked solution. Aim for about thirty seconds each.
These are original questions written by Selectivetrial. EduTest has never released its real papers, so nobody has genuine past questions — anything advertised as one is a reconstruction. Everything below was written by our team to match the level, style and timing of the real section. They are for practice, not a prediction of what will appear.
The largest strand at every entry level. Fractions, decimals, percentages and order of operations, all without a calculator.
What is three-quarters of 96?
What is 15% of 240?
What is 0.25 × 48?
Which of these fractions is the smallest?
Substitution, expanding, and one- and two-step equations. Most errors here are sign errors, not method errors.
If 3x + 7 = 25, what is the value of x?
Expand 2(3x − 4).
If y = 2x² − 3, what is y when x = 4?
Angle facts, shape properties and, from Year 10 entry, Pythagoras. Diagrams are often not to scale — never measure, always calculate.
Two angles of a triangle measure 47° and 68°. What is the third angle?
A rectangle has a perimeter of 36 cm and a length of 11 cm. What is its width?
A right-angled triangle has shorter sides of 9 cm and 12 cm. How long is the hypotenuse?
Perimeter, area, volume and metric conversion. Check the units in the options before you calculate anything.
How many metres are there in 2.5 kilometres?
A triangle has a base of 14 cm and a perpendicular height of 9 cm. What is its area?
A rectangular box measures 5 cm by 4 cm by 3 cm. What is its volume?
Probability as a fraction of total outcomes, and simple two-step events. Always count the total, not just the favourable outcomes.
A bag holds 15 marbles, 4 of which are red. One marble is drawn at random. What is the probability that it is red?
Two fair coins are tossed. What is the probability that both land heads?
Mean, median, mode and range, plus reading data from graphs and tables. Order the numbers before you do anything else.
What is the mean of 12, 15, 9, 20 and 14?
What is the median of 7, 3, 9, 12 and 5?
What is the range of 22, 8, 15, 30 and 11?
Multi-step word problems. The content is ordinary arithmetic — the work is in translating the sentence into a calculation.
A car travels 240 km in 3 hours at a constant speed. How far will it travel in 4 hours?
$64 is shared between two people in the ratio 5 : 3. How much does the person with the larger share receive?
A recipe uses 250 mL of milk to serve 4 people. How much milk is needed to serve 10 people?
Year 10 and Year 11 entry only. Index laws, gradient and linear relationships appear alongside the standard content rather than replacing it.
What is 2³ × 2⁴?
What is the gradient of the straight line passing through (1, 3) and (5, 11)?
The real section is sixty-odd questions in thirty minutes with a clock running. That pressure is the thing worth practising, and it only exists in a full timed paper.
For Year 7, 8 and 9 entry the paper stays inside primary and junior-secondary content. From Year 10 entry upward, a handful of senior topics appear — not many, but enough to matter when every question carries equal weight.
Multiplying and dividing powers of the same base, powers of powers, and the zero index. Expect these as short calculations rather than proofs.
Drill: am × an = am+n, am ÷ an = am−n, (am)n = amn, a0 = 1.
Gradient between two points, reading a gradient off a graph, and recognising y = mx + c. Sign errors on negative gradients are the usual loss.
Drill: rise over run, always in the same order for both coordinates.
Finding a hypotenuse or a shorter side, and applying it inside a word problem — a ladder against a wall, a diagonal across a rectangle.
Drill: the 3-4-5, 5-12-13 and 8-15-17 families, so common cases need no calculation.
Two equations, two unknowns, solved by substitution or elimination. Year 11 entry only, and usually one or two questions at most.
Drill: setting them up from a worded scenario, which is harder than solving them.
Expanding a pair of brackets, factorising a common term, and simple quadratic expansion. Method marks do not exist — only the final answer counts.
Drill: checking an expansion by substituting x = 1 into both forms.
Sine, cosine and tangent ratios in right-angled triangles, at the most straightforward level. Appears rarely, and only for Year 11 entry.
Drill: SOH-CAH-TOA, and identifying which side is opposite the marked angle.
Do not over-invest here. Higher-level topics are a small share of even a Year 11 paper. A student who is shaky on percentages and fractions but has drilled trigonometry has optimised the wrong end of the paper. Secure the arithmetic and measurement core first; treat the senior topics as the last fortnight's work.
The content is only half of it. These five decisions, made the same way every time, are what turn knowledge into marks when the clock is running.
Multiple choice is information. If the options are 12, 14, 15 and 21, an estimate settles it. If they are in different units from the question, convert first. Ten seconds spent here often saves forty.
Scan → then solve"About 20 × 4" removes anything not near 80 without a single exact calculation. On roughly a third of questions estimation alone reduces four options to two, and sometimes to one.
Rough first, exact if neededOn equations and some word problems, testing the four answers is faster than solving. For 3x + 7 = 25, trying x = 6 takes five seconds. Working backwards is a legitimate method, not a shortcut to feel guilty about.
Backwards beats forwardsAbout thirty seconds on the first pass, sixty at the absolute maximum. When it hits, eliminate what you can, choose, flag it and move. A hard question is worth exactly what an easy one is and costs four times as much.
Flag and moveEduTest awards marks for correct answers and deducts nothing for wrong ones, so an empty box can only score zero. Sweep the last minute for unanswered questions and fill every one, even blind.
Always → blank sweepTwo passes, always. Answer everything that resolves quickly on the first pass and flag the rest, then return with whatever time remains. Question order is not guaranteed to run easy to hard — a student working strictly in order can spend four minutes on question seven and never reach twelve easy marks at the end. Our EduTest exam strategies guide covers the full method across all five sections.
In our marking, careless errors are consistently a larger bucket than genuine knowledge gaps in the Mathematics section. Every item below is preventable with a habit rather than more content.
Calculating in centimetres when the options are in metres. Circle the units in the question and in the options before starting.
Answering the wrong quantity entirely. Underline the command word — area, perimeter, volume — before touching the numbers.
Circle questions frequently give the diameter. Halve it before it enters any formula, and write the radius down.
Brackets, indices, then multiplication and division, then addition and subtraction. Substitution questions are built to punish shortcuts here.
Triangle area without the ½, giving exactly double. It is offered as an option in almost every triangle question.
Finding the smaller share when the question asked for the larger. Re-read the final sentence before selecting.
Negatives in algebra and gradient. Write the minus sign before the number, not after the calculation.
Judging an angle or length by eye. Diagrams illustrate; they do not measure. Calculate every time.
The diagnostic that tells you what to do next: if the careless bucket is the largest, stop adding content and work on habits — underlining command words, circling units, a ten-second check before committing. Families who do this typically see the careless rate fall by half within a month, which is a bigger score movement than any new topic would have delivered.
Roughly three to four hours a week, split so that fluency, content and timed practice each get their share. This is the maths slice of the wider plan in our EduTest preparation guide.
| Phase | Weeks | Focus | Weekly shape |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diagnose | 1–2 | One full timed paper, then sort every error into the four buckets. Build a gap list from what it shows. | 1 timed paper · 1 review session · 10 min daily tables |
| Close gaps | 3–6 | Teach the "never learned it" topics one at a time. Arithmetic and measurement first, algebra second, everything else after. | 2 topic sessions · 1 short timed set · 10 min daily tables |
| Build speed | 7–9 | Content is broadly in place; now compress the time. Timed sets of twenty questions in ten minutes, then full sections. | 2 timed sets · 1 full section · error log review |
| Rehearse | 10–11 | Full mock papers under exam conditions, including the other four sections, so stamina and section-switching are practised. | 1 full mock · 1 review · targeted re-drills |
| Taper | 12 | Error log only. No new material. Short daily fluency, early nights, logistics confirmed with the school. | 15 min daily · no new topics |
The one non-negotiable: ten minutes of timed mental arithmetic every day, from week one to the day before. It is the smallest commitment on the plan and the one with the clearest effect on the section, because it buys back seconds on every question rather than marks on a few.
The questions families ask us most often about this section.
Mathematics draws on the curriculum strands your child has been taught: arithmetic and number (fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio, negative numbers, order of operations), algebra, geometry, measurement, statistics and probability, and multi-step problem solving. From Year 10 entry it also includes higher-level topics such as index laws, gradient, Pythagoras and, for Year 11 entry, simultaneous equations and basic trigonometry. Arithmetic is the largest single block at every level.
Around 30 minutes of multiple-choice questions. The exact number of questions varies by entry level and test form, but it works out to roughly thirty seconds per question — which is why speed of accurate mental arithmetic matters as much as knowing the content.
No. EduTest is a non-calculator test throughout, in both Mathematics and Numerical Reasoning. Students work mentally or on whatever scrap space is provided. This is the single most important thing to rehearse if your child is used to calculator access at school.
Mathematics is an achievement test — it assesses curriculum content your child has been taught, such as fractions, area and equations. Numerical Reasoning is an ability test — it assesses pattern recognition and logic with numbers, and deliberately uses very little taught content so that it does not favour students who have covered more of the syllabus. They are separate, separately timed sections.
No. EduTest awards marks for correct answers and deducts nothing for incorrect ones, so an unanswered question can only ever score zero while a guess always has a chance. Every box should be filled before time is called. If your child can eliminate two of the four options first, the odds on that guess rise from 25% to 50%.
It varies by entry level and by test form, and EduTest does not publish a fixed figure. In practice it sits at roughly sixty questions in thirty minutes for most levels. Rather than counting questions, prepare to a pace: about thirty seconds each, with a hard ceiling of sixty seconds before flagging and moving on.
No. EduTest has never released its real papers, so genuine past papers do not exist publicly — anything sold or shared as one is a reconstruction of varying quality. What does work is well-matched practice material written to the same level, style and timing. We explain the distinction in full in our EduTest past papers guide.
Work on fluency rather than content. Ten minutes a day of timed multiplication tables, doubles and halves, number bonds, and the fraction-decimal-percentage equivalents will move the score more than another topic will. Speed is the constraint in this section far more often than knowledge is.
Roughly one year. Papers routinely include a handful of questions that stretch beyond the expected level, and covering one year up handles most of them. Beyond that the return drops sharply — those questions are worth the same as every other one and are better flagged and left than fought.
Six to twelve months before the test date is the usual window, with a twelve-week intensive phase at the end. Starting earlier mainly helps because content gaps take weeks to close properly, while speed and exam habits build in the final block. Our EduTest preparation guide sets out the full timeline for 2026 and 2027 sittings.
There is no published pass mark. Results are standardised and reported as percentile ranks, and each school sets its own threshold for interviews and offers — which varies year to year with the applicant pool. All five sections carry equal weight, so a strong Mathematics result lifts the overall picture but does not on its own decide an offer.
No. The five sections are timed and standardised separately, then considered together, so one weak section lowers the overall picture without ending the attempt. Tell your child this explicitly before the day — students who believe one bad section has finished them often turn it into two.
Reading about the section changes nothing on its own. A timed paper, an honest error log and ten minutes of daily fluency are what move the number — and you can start the first one today at no cost.
